Fire in the Pasture: Twenty-first Century Mormon Poetry, edited by frequent WIZ contributor Tyler Chadwick, made its debut at 2011 end in impressive style. Tyler reports that Fire in the Pasture has “risen as high as #2 in both Hot New Anthologies and Hot New Inspirational & Religious and #12 in Hot New Poetry.” The [...]
(for R.D.)
river rushes north
along aged Indian
trails cupping hands
with scout guides
and ghosts of foreign
navigators once lost
among mosquito marsh
and dense brush, asking
sustenance from
unforgiving earth
plucking berries
you picked in autumn
before she turned
gold to silver and
mud brown—the
end of hunting
and the creation of
renewed paths, when
beauty paved the road to
harshness, we gathered
dancing in deer skins, to
the sacred drum, hoping
to find the heartbeat [...]
The shy eyes filled with metallic lustre ogle at me
in the moonlit night.
I try to fix my concentration
within the shining leaves of the tree.
The girl with a brown body,
green eyelids, a hundred arms is what I see.
She has a unique pose; bent back resting upon flat feet.
Dry hairs straight down to soil,
and the light song [...]
I’d just like to say again how, in both quantity and quality, this year’s Spring Poetry Runoff exceeded my hopes. I’m deeply grateful for everyone’s participation and consider hosting such an outpouring of spring passion a high honor. Seeing writers come together to play and ply their craft has been inspiring, and my hopes for [...]
Victorian Violet Press editor Karen Kelsay, a frequent contributor to WIZ, sent this announcement:
Victorian Violet Press, an online poetry magazine, is seeking submissions for the December issue. Please check out the magazine to get an idea of what type of poetry is published. You can find the magazine here.
Guidelines: Our taste in poetry is eclectic, [...]
A compass needle, a lizard, spins half a turn
To keep me in sight, tweaking my sense of direction:
Spring is coming — that way.
According to my 2010 turtle calendar, the Vernal Equinox arrives Saturday, March 20. To celebrate spring’s arrival last year, WIZ ran a Spring Poetry Run-off that turned out to be lots of fun. [...]
Swallows fly low and fast
Singing of nests in the arena’s rafters.
Heat radiates through wood and sand
Melodius with the voices of young girls,
Odorous with warm sweat of horses,
Pungent with fresh manure,
Sweet from hay growing in the field.
The mare and the girl work hard
Learning to dance together,
To understand a tug of the rein,
The lean of a body, [...]